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When an employee leaves, their Google Drive files do not automatically become safe. An admin has four real options to transfer Google Drive ownership: the Admin console’s bulk data transfer tool, a manual per-file transfer before their last day, a transfer at the moment of account deletion or a move to Shared Drives so no single person owns the files at all. Each method has a specific scope and specific blind spots, and the gaps between them are exactly where companies lose files during offboarding. This article walks through every method, what it actually moves, what it leaves behind and the checklist step that prevents the problem from recurring.
TL;DR
The Admin console’s Data Transfer tool moves the files the departing user owns, including Sites files, which are stored in Drive. It does not touch Shared Drive content or files the departing employee didn’t own, and transferring ownership doesn’t change who else has access.
There is no direct transfer to or from an external account. The documented workaround is for the external owner to make a copy or move the files into a shared drive your organization controls.
Transferring at deletion time is possible but risky: after you delete a user, Google lets you restore them for up to 20 days, and after that the data is gone.
Shared Drives remove the ownership problem permanently, because files belong to the organization, not the individual.
A leaver checklist with one fixed sequence (suspend the account, transfer files, verify, then delete) prevents the scramble that happens after someone has already left.
About the Author: This article is written by the ShiftControl team. ShiftControl was built by ex-ExpressVPN operators and is purpose-built for Google Workspace, for companies that run IT without a dedicated IT team.
What Does the Admin Console’s Data Transfer Tool Actually Move?
The Data Transfer tool in the Google Workspace Admin console is the standard way to transfer Google Drive ownership in bulk for a single departing user. It reassigns ownership of the files that user owns in “My Drive” to a new designated owner within the organization. Only files the user owns transfer, and transferring doesn’t change who else has access to them.
Here is what it does not do, and this is where most offboarding gaps start:
Shared Drive content stays with the organization since those files are already owned by the organization rather than the individual.
Files the employee had edit access to but did not own fall outside the tool’s scope, since there is no ownership to reassign.
Third-party apps where the employee held admin or file ownership, such as a shared drawing tool, a CRM or a project management platform outside Google Workspace, are not touched by this tool.
Google Sites files are not a gap. They are stored in Drive and transfer like other Drive files, so check that the Sites the employee owned appear under the new owner afterward.
To run it: an admin signs into the Admin console, navigates to the user’s account and initiates the data transfer, selecting a receiving user. Run it after suspending the account and before deleting it. Suspending first stops the leaver from changing files while the transfer runs, and you can’t run the transfer against a deleted account without restoring it first.
How Does a Manual Per-File or Folder Transfer Work?
A manual transfer is the fallback for anything the bulk tool misses, and it is also the only practical route if you only need to move a handful of files rather than someone’s entire Drive. Before their last day, the employee can open the file or folder in Google Drive and reassign ownership through the sharing settings. Once they have left, the documented admin route is the Data transfer tool in the Admin console or a transfer at the time you delete the user.
Folder behavior often surprises people: when you change a folder’s owner, the files inside stay with their current owners, including you. Each file’s ownership is tracked independently. A folder can look like a single object but behave like a loose collection of individually owned items, each requiring its own ownership check.
Google Sheets, Docs and Slides transfer ownership the same way other Drive files do: through the sharing dialog, not a separate “ownership” menu for each file type.
The hard limit here: there is no direct ownership transfer to or from an external account. A file owned by a partner’s personal Gmail account or a vendor’s separate Workspace domain cannot be reassigned to your internal user through this process. Google’s documented workaround is for the external owner to make a copy or move the files into a shared drive your organization controls.
What Happens If You Transfer Ownership at Deletion Time?
This method carries the most risk if rushed, and it’s worth naming the mechanism plainly so admins stop treating account deletion as a routine step. Google Workspace allows admins to run the data transfer at the point of deleting a user’s account, but the sequencing matters.
Account state | What happens to data | Recovery window |
|---|---|---|
Suspended, license retained or Archived User assigned | Data is retained indefinitely | No deadline, but license cost continues |
Deleted | Data is removed once the window closes | Up to 20 days to restore the user |
If the data transfer step is skipped or fails silently during deletion, the only way back is restoring the account inside that 20-day window. After that, the files are not recoverable. This is why the safe sequence is: suspend the account, transfer the files, verify the transfer completed and the new owner can see everything expected, then delete. Treating suspension and deletion as one instant action is a common way companies lose files permanently during offboarding.
Why Are Shared Drives the Real Long-Term Fix?
The more durable answer is to stop individual ownership from being the default in the first place. Shared Drives assign file ownership to the organization, not to any one user, which means there is nothing to transfer when someone leaves because they were never the owner to begin with.
This matters for a reason beyond convenience. Access control frameworks like SOC 2 and ISO 27001 generally require formal revocation of access and return of assets at termination, with SOC 2’s relevant criteria covering timely removal of logical access during offboarding. Both types of controls are far easier to satisfy structurally, by removing a person from a Shared Drive membership list, than procedurally, by chasing down every file an individual happened to create over several years. GDPR’s security requirements (Article 32) point the same way gdpr-info.eu. A Shared Drive turns an access-removal problem into a membership-removal problem, which is a smaller and more auditable action.
The practical move: any folder that is used by more than one person, which is most working folders in a company, should live in a Shared Drive rather than someone’s My Drive. New hires get added to the Shared Drive on day one through normal provisioning; departing employees get removed on their last day, and nothing moves because nothing was ever theirs alone.
What Should Go on an Offboarding Checklist for Drive Ownership?
The fix is procedural, not just technical. A short, concrete checklist, run in this order, catches what the tools alone will miss:
Identify every file and folder the employee owns in My Drive and classify which are shared with others versus purely personal.
Suspend the account so nothing changes while you work.
Run the Admin console’s Data Transfer tool and name a specific receiving owner, typically their manager or a team lead, not a generic admin account.
Check that any Google Sites the employee owned now sit under the new owner. Sites files are stored in Drive and transfer with the rest.
Audit any files owned by someone outside the organization’s domain; there is no direct transfer, so ask the external owner to make a copy or move them into a shared drive your organization controls.
Remove or reassign the employee’s access and ownership in third-party apps connected through Google Workspace sign-in, since app-level ownership (a Slack workspace, a project board, an invoiced SaaS tool) sits outside Drive entirely.
Verify the transfer completed and the new owner can see the files, then delete the account after the retention period your policy requires and move recurring team folders into a Shared Drive so the next departure does not repeat this work.
A checklist that covers access revocation and hardware return still needs the ownership transfer sequenced around suspension and deletion. Getting the order wrong is what turns a routine offboarding step into a data-loss incident.
How Does This Fit Into Broader Employee Lifecycle Management?
Ownership transfer is one task inside a much longer offboarding sequence that also includes revoking app access, reclaiming SaaS licenses and closing out permissions across every connected tool, not just Google Workspace. Handling each of these manually, one departing employee at a time, is exactly the kind of work that a growing company without a dedicated IT function struggles to keep consistent.
ShiftControl removes Google Workspace access automatically when someone leaves, and it generates the rest of the offboarding steps as a Work Items task list for the admin to work through or hand to the app owner. You can see every app and OAuth scope connected to your Workspace, so the list of what to close out starts from what is actually connected. ShiftControl does not make a company compliant on its own; that determination belongs to the auditor.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you transfer Google Drive ownership to someone outside your company domain?
No. There is no direct transfer to or from an external account. The documented workaround is for the external owner to make a copy or move the files into a shared drive your organization controls.
Does transferring a folder transfer ownership of everything inside it?
No. When you change a folder’s owner, the files inside stay with their current owners, including you. Check ownership file by file.
What happens to Shared Drive files when an employee leaves?
Nothing needs to transfer. Shared Drive content is owned by the organization, not the individual, so removing the employee’s membership is sufficient.
How long do you have to recover data after deleting a Google Workspace account?
Up to 20 days after you delete the user. After that window, the data cannot be restored.
Does the Admin console’s data transfer tool move Google Sites?
Yes. Sites files are stored in Drive and transfer like other Drive files.
Is there a special process to transfer ownership of a Google Sheet versus a Doc?
No. All Drive file types, including Sheets, Docs and Slides, transfer ownership through the same sharing-based mechanism.
What’s the safest sequence: suspend first or delete first?
Suspend the account, transfer the files, verify the new owner has access, then delete. Deleting before confirming the transfer risks permanent data loss outside the 20-day recovery window.
About ShiftControl
ShiftControl is purpose-built for Google Workspace, for companies that run IT without a dedicated IT team. Google Workspace access is set up and removed automatically when someone joins, moves or leaves, and everything else runs as a guided task list for the app owner. You can see every app and OAuth scope connected to your Workspace and track SaaS spend and renewals. You can also export app assignments and authorization history as audit evidence. Cyber incident response (IR-1, via Blackpanda) is included in every subscription. ShiftControl is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant, ISO 27001 certified and signed the CISA Secure by Design Pledge in 2024. Setup takes as little as 10 minutes with a Google Workspace admin sign-in.
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References
Transfer Drive files to a new owner as an admin (knowledge.workspace.google.com)
Transfer ownership of Sites files (knowledge.workspace.google.com)
Make someone else the owner of your file (support.google.com)
Restore a recently deleted user (knowledge.workspace.google.com)
GDPR Article 32: Security of processing (gdpr-info.eu)
